On the issue of the gay marriage, I believe if people want to have private ceremonies, that's fine. I do not believe that gay marriages should be legal.

In 1987, I had my first opportunity to provide 'advice and consent' on a Supreme Court nominee. At that time, I stated that the qualifications essential for evaluating a nominee for the bench included 'integrity, character, legal competence and ability, experience, and philosophy and judicial temperament.' On that test, Elena Kagan fails.

Our great power does not mean we can do whatever we want whenever we want, nor should we assume we have all the wisdom and knowledge necessary to succeed.

Politics abhors a vacuum, and Asian countries will gravitate towards China if U.S. influence is perceived as declining.

The truth is sometimes a hard pill to swallow. It sometimes causes us difficulties at home and abroad. It is sometimes used by our enemies in attempts to hurt us. But the American people are entitled to it, nonetheless.

You've got to reach a hand of friendship across the aisle and across philosophies in this country.

My father used to have an expression. He'd say, 'Joey, a job is about a lot more than a paycheck. It's about your dignity. It's about respect. It's about your place in your community.'

Our future cannot depend on the government alone. The ultimate solutions lie in the attitudes and the actions of the American people.

The devastating punch we took on September 11th still reverberates throughout American society.

No fundamental social change occurs merely because government acts. It's because civil society, the conscience of a country, begins to rise up and demand - demand - demand change.

Look folks, we know who built this country and we know who is going to rebuild it. It's you. Instead of vilifying you, we should be thanking you. We owe you.

We don't want two-tier people in America. Those who are legal but not citizens, and citizens.

When my first semester grades came out, my mom and dad told me I wouldn't be playing football.

There is no inherent power in the office of the vice presidency. Zero. None. It's all a reflection of your relationship with the president. I mean, Kennedy never let Johnson in the office.

Given a fair shot, given a fair chance, Americans have never, ever, ever, ever let their country down. Never. Never. Ordinary people like us. Who do extraordinary things.

I used to stutter really badly. Everybody thinks it's funny. And it's not funny. It's not.

We're going to be OK because of the American people. They have more grit, determination and courage than you can imagine.

Corruption is a cancer: a cancer that eats away at a citizen's faith in democracy, diminishes the instinct for innovation and creativity; already-tight national budgets, crowding out important national investments. It wastes the talent of entire generations. It scares away investments and jobs.

The Chinese have figured out that they have a giant environmental problem. Folks in Beijing, some days, literally can't breathe. Over a million Chinese die prematurely every year because of air pollution.

This is absolutely bizarre that we continue to subsidize highways beyond the gasoline tax, airlines, and we don't subsidize, we don't want to subsidize a national rail system that has environmental impact.

Failure at some point in your life is inevitable, but giving up is unforgivable.

My dad used to have an expression - 'It is the lucky person who gets up in the morning, puts both feet on the floor, knows what they are about to do, and thinks it still matters.'

My dad always said, 'Champ, the measure of a man is not how often he is knocked down, but how quickly he gets up.'

We're teaching young girls that this is what they should be focusing on: rich and famous girls who are rich and famous for nothing.

There's a remarkable amount of sexism on TV. When male characters are flawed, they're interesting, deep and complex. But when female characters are flawed, they're just a mess. It's good to put more flawed but interesting female characters out there because it promotes equality.

Happiness is not that easy to achieve, but having a handsome husband, a beautiful baby, and a great job helps.

I don't find acting to be a particularly noble way to make a living. I'm not saving anybody's life, I'm not a teacher, I'm not working for UNICEF. I don't think I'm some big deal.

Brotherhood means laying down your life for somebody, really willing to sacrifice yourself for somebody else.

I'm a compulsive reader of fiction. I fell in love with novels when I was a teenager. My wife Marilyn and I... our initial friendship began because we are both readers. I've gone to sleep almost every night of my life after having read in a novel for 30 or 40 minutes. I'm a great reader of fiction and much less so of non-fiction.

I do not like to work with patients who are in love. Perhaps it is because of envy - I, too, crave enchantment. Perhaps it is because love and psychotherapy are fundamentally incompatible. The good therapist fights darkness and seeks illumination, while romantic love is sustained by mystery and crumbles upon inspection.

We're not teaching our students the importance of relationships with other people: how you work with them, what the relational pathology consists of, how you examine your own conscience, how you examine the inner world, how you examine your dreams.

There was great leadership in this country at the time of World War II. There was also unrelenting resolve at home, in America's factories and on the farms, in the cities and the country.

Sympathy is something that shouldn't be bestowed upon the Yankees. Apparently it angers them.

I'm no hero. Heroes don't come back. Survivors return home. Heroes never come home. If anyone thinks I'm a hero, I'm not.

Every day is a new opportunity. You can build on yesterday's success or put its failures behind and start over again. That's the way life is, with a new game every day, and that's the way baseball is.

What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well.

I know but one freedom, and that is the freedom of the mind.

True happiness comes from the joy of deeds well done, the zest of creating things new.

It is in the compelling zest of high adventure and of victory, and in creative action, that man finds his supreme joys.

I have no right, by anything I do or say, to demean a human being in his own eyes. What matters is not what I think of him; it is what he thinks of himself. To undermine a man's self-respect is a sin.

Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.

Tell me who admires and loves you, and I will tell you who you are.

The meaning of things lies not in the things themselves, but in our attitude towards them.

The machine does not isolate man from the great problems of nature but plunges him more deeply into them.

Charity never humiliated him who profited from it, nor ever bound him by the chains of gratitude, since it was not to him but to God that the gift was made.

A civilization is a heritage of beliefs, customs, and knowledge slowly accumulated in the course of centuries, elements difficult at times to justify by logic, but justifying themselves as paths when they lead somewhere, since they open up for man his inner distance.

The time for action is now. It's never too late to do something.

When you give yourself, you receive more than you give.

A civilization is built on what is required of men, not on that which is provided for them.

Only the unknown frightens men. But once a man has faced the unknown, that terror becomes the known.